


A Little Sweetness

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anniversary, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Humanstuck, POV Third Person, Secret Santa, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"She's had dreams of delicate petits-fours and fanciful marzipan, of gorgeously layered custards and parfaits. An entire array of glorious, perfect sweets. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>It was going to be storybook-perfect."</i>
</p><p>Anniversaries are meant to be special. They're an important milestone in any healthy relationship, and Aranea is determined to pull off an unexpected, wonderful surprise for Meenah to mark the occasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [aweslucktuck](http://aweslucktuck.tumblr.com/) for [secretsantastuck](http://secretsantastuck.tumblr.com/) this Christmas. I am eternally grateful to [Stripe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripe/pseuds/Stripe) for a kickass last-minute beta job. She was amazing about it, so any remaining mistakes are on me.

There is flour everywhere.

A fine white powder coats Aranea's clothes and settles in across the countertops. Even her hair is lightly dusted, like she's the confectionery – Aranea can feel it starting to itch against her scalp. All she's done is attempt a basic sift, and it's wreaked destruction like a bomb's detonation. How she's accomplished this is beyond her.

The clock over the stove stares down at her in pitiless mockery. 

Aranea drops onto a stool, dragging over the cookbook she's been working from and staring down at the recipe with intense scrutiny. The instructions are short and concise, and she slides her fingers up through her hair to clutch her head as she considers their dubious wisdom. With so few words, the process should hardly be a mystery. 

It sounds deceptively simple. Aranea wishes this author of sage baking advice had explained her process more thoroughly. 

Yet after further perusal, the book reveals no further secrets, and Aranea hops up to embrace her task with renewed determination. One cake, that's all she needs to make. She's had dreams of delicate petits-fours and fanciful marzipan, of gorgeously layered custards and parfaits. An entire array of glorious, perfect sweets. 

_Look, Meenah,_ she'd chide, _There's absolutely nothing wrong with showing a little sweetness once in a while. You might even like it._

Aranea could see Meenah's face perfectly, radiant, beaming in ecstatic delight at the spread of delicious treats. She could imagine Meenah's enthusiasm, eager to dig in to the bounty gifted to her. And she could already hear Meenah's noisy dismissal of her little insinuation, even while seating herself at the table and allowing Aranea to feed her bite-sized morsels from her fingertips.

It was going to be storybook-perfect.

Until Aranea proved that she can hardly even pour and measure without causing kitchen Armageddon. 

But she gives it another go, laboriously scooping flour, shakily pouring out baking soda in the correct amount, biting her lip in frustration as she repeats the process twice because no, no, that measure isn't perfectly precise. She's careful this time, allowing no mistaken motions that will send her dry ingredients rising like a mushroom cloud into the air. Everything is in the bowl, wet ingredients added, all she has to do is put her arm into it and stir. 

The clock on the wall keeps ticking, and time marches on. 

Aranea glances at it, furtively, in between the heavy, sweeping motions of her arm, stares at it beseechingly as she pours the cake batter into a pan and slides it into the oven. It's only when she sets the timer for the cake that she feels briefly in control of the minutes slipping away from her. The feeling quickly passes. 

It's Porrim's kitchen Aranea is struggling in, a loaned space that was not begrudged her. 

Although Aranea remembers Porrim's secret, knowing smile when Aranea had to ask.

Porrim knows how Meenah is. She's like a terrier, yapping loud and insistent,and once she gets her teeth into something, she worries away at it until it's been utterly destroyed. It's a capital offense to keep anything from her. Meenah will get to the bottom of it, and when she does she'll set the hapless victim straight for trying to dupe her. 

It's an absolutely terrible attitude when one is trying to plan the perfect anniversary. 

And still the cake is slowly baking. 

It's Aranea's home where Meenah will meet her, according to Aranea's precise instructions, the vast majority of which must have gone in one ear and out the other so as to necessitate checking that the most vital of directions had not been dismissed. Meenah will be there, that much was communicated loud and clear. What's up for debate is whether Aranea herself will make it on time. 

The oven is a warm, maddening presence, radiating heat as Aranea neatly paces before it. She's too proud to constantly check the cake, knowing that her fretting will do nothing to speed the cooking process. But when she can feel the warmth on her skin it's like she can feel the cake baking, like she isn't just in here alone waiting to surprise her girlfriend. 

"Stop stridin' around, Serket, you're makin' me seasick. And anemoneways, the floor can take it, if you wanna wear through the tiles you're gonna have to try harder than that."

Aranea jumps guiltily, head snapping around to track Meenah where she's leaning against the doorframe.

"Meenah," she says, a bit reproachfully. "What are you doing here?"

"Got bored waitin' for you to come around. Door was unlocked."

A surreptitious glance up at the clock proves that Meenah is early.

"...And that bottom-feeder Ampora came around askin' how it feels to be stood up by my girlfriend and some albaloney aboat how a girl like me needs a reel man in her life."

Meenah pushes off the door, swaggering over to Aranea, and then past her, to inspect the contents of the countertops. 

"When I shot him down he strarted whinin', and let it slip where you snuck off to. He must've weaseled it outta Maryam."

"I thought Porrim would be able to keep a secret more carefully than that," Aranea says, weakly.

Meenah is running her fingers through the drifts of flour lining the counters while Aranea watches her. She rubs the granules together between her fingers, almost contemplatively, before wiping her hands on her pants with hardly a thought. It's an inspection going down, Aranea realizes, and she doesn't quite know what to think.

Until Meenah reaches for the cooling rack, a fork grasped in her fist. 

"Ah, no, don't!" Aranea protests, reaching out to stay Meenah's hand. 

"C'mon Serket, water you holding me up for?"

"I'm afraid that is the result of a preliminary but largely unsuccessful culinary attempt. I had meant to dispose of it before your arrival but time in which to do so eluded me. You don't want to--" 

But Meenah jerks her hand out of Aranea's grasp, slippery as an eel, driving the tines of her fork into the rejected cake and levering a bite into her mouth before Aranea can stop her.

"Bleck, Serket, you weren't kiddin' aboat the failure part," Meenah protests, tonguing the majority of the bite into her hand. "Did you use salt instead've sugar? You know I love the ocean as much as the next girl but cakes ain't supposed to taste like seawater."

While she's talking, Meenah keeps spitting, spraying soggy crumbs and making the most personally offended face in Aranea's recent memory. When she dumps her palmful of cake into the sink it's with a degree of force that loudly proclaims "good riddance." 

"I don't believe I did," Aranea frets, side-eying the cake before casting a glance in the direction of the trash bin. "I followed the recipe quite carefully; it's entirely a mystery to me why the result is so unpalatable."

Before Meenah can offer anything in retort, the shrilling of the baking timer fills the room, assaulting both of their ears only for the bare moments it takes Meenah to jab it into silence. 

"Got another one in the oven?" Meenah asks, rhetorically, even as she's sliding on oven mitts and popping open the oven door. "Let's reel her in and sea how this one tastes."

"Careful—" Aranea starts, before she can stop herself. 

She considers biting her tongue, but continues on anyway. 

"...it's hot, you shouldn't cut into it yet."

"I know that, dummy," Meenah says, neatly situating the cake to cool. When she's satisfied, she hops up on one of Porrim's kitchen stools, swinging her leg and propping her elbow on the table. "What's all'a this, Gabbygills? You been all clammed up, don't know what you're planning."

Aranea drifts after her, a small fish caught in a wide net, all ready to be hauled up in the boat and assessed for adequacy. She sits on the stool across from Meenah, primly crossing her legs at the ankles and resting with her hands in her lap, back straight.

"It was supposed to be a surprise," she says.

"No such thing as surprises with friends like ours!" Meenah announces a bit too cheerfully. "All these busybodies will do anyfin for a quick krill. You can't tell your business to nobody." 

"It does seem to be that way, with our group," Aranea concedes. 

Meenah kicks her stool, the heel of her shoe audibly impacting the wooden leg over and over in a rhythmic sort of thudding that starts to get into Aranea's bones. Meenah is still leaning over the table, and grinning at her.

"Water you tryin' to keep anyfin a secret for, anemoneways?" Meenah asks. "Surprises are for chumps. You don't gotta do nothin' to impress me. Just keep doin' the things I tell you to." 

Aranea can feel her heart beating in her chest, until it seems to be pounding in time with Meenah's foot hitting the stool.

"Impressing you is beside the point," she insists. "We've simply reached an important milestone in our relationship and it seemed prudent to do something out of the ordinary to commemorate that occasion. Something special."

"Somefin like learnin' how to bake and makin' me a very special cake we can eat in Maryam's fancy house and feel classy about ourselves?"

"Something like that."

"You're a reel romantic, Serket."

Aranea sways forward over the table while they talk, moving in closer as Meenah leans forward, dimly anticipatory. This isn't at all what Aranea imagined when she set out to bake for Meenah. She does want to impress her, when it comes down to it. Meenah always says what she thinks, telegraphs it loud and clear with aggressive, undeniable body language. Aranea doesn't have the same forcefulness of personality, but she wants to show that she's a match for Meenah in her own way. 

"I am a bit of that, at heart," she says, after a pause almost too long to be excused. 

"An' I'm the one who hooked you, line and sinker." 

Meenah pushes herself away from the table and she's off her stool, striding across the kitchen. Warning is beyond her. By the time Aranea stands and walks after her, she's selected a knife to her liking and is decisively slicing out a sliver of unfrosted cake. There's a plate in her hand and she's neatly tipping the slice onto it, before again taking her fork and scooping up a bite.

"Open wide," she beckons, starting to jab the forkful of cake at Aranea's face like it's a weapon.

Aranea laughs and pushes at her hand, thankful that the pushes towards her with the cake are short, and less forceful than they could have been. 

"You're feeding me now?" she asks. 

"I don't wanna put this carp in my blowhole until I know it's not as gross as the last one. C'mon Serket, take a nice big bite."

Aranea shakes her head, but ultimately complies, opening her mouth in acceptance. 

She just as immediately cringes, rolling the bite of cake over her tongue uncomfortably and giving it a few more chews, telling herself that she'll swallow and it'll go down before admitting defeat and spitting it – more discreetly than Meenah, at least – into her hand. 

"It's a disaster," she admits, without prettying it up. 

"'Course it is," Meenah agrees. "I'm guessin' you beat the batter too long, didn't separate the egg whites from the yolks, and baked it at just too high a temp. Take a step back outta the kitchen an' let a reel master show you how it gets done."

Aranea stares at her. 

Meenah stares back like it's a challenge,before turning and briskly clearing off a workspace on the countertop. She rifles through Aranea's ingredients, making little tsking noises of approval or judgment, putting some things away and pulling others out of the fridge. Aranea simply watches her in empirical fascination.

"If you insist," she comments at last, when it's far too late. 

Meenah measures and pours with unflinching precision, sifts and mixes and assesses her progress with what Aranea easily recognizes as a critical eye. She doesn't spare a moment for a recipe book or second-guessing. Aranea can tell that the steps Meenah follows are not the exact ones she'd learned for the cake she was making, but they're executed with casual certainty. Like she's on top of everything, and there isn't anybody who can tell her no.

It's beautiful to watch, like viewing flawless choreography in a once-in-a-lifetime dance performance.

Meenah's efforts yield three different cake batters, and as she's selecting cake pans, she double-checks that the oven temperature is correct. Only two of the filled pans go inside. 

"Last one bakes at a different temperature," she announces, surprising Aranea with the acknowledgment that she's still there. 

For once in her life, Aranea has absolutely nothing to say. 

"C'mere," Meenah says. "Good guppies get to lick the spoon." 

Meenah is holding her stirring spoon loose in her hand, so she can tilt the batter-coated business end up and down in obvious enticement. Aranea comes forward in curious obedience, lets Meenah drag the spoon against her parted lips, so her tongue catches the flavor, before Meenah's pulled it away and she's left licking the sticky traces from the outside of her mouth. The taste is sharp, stronger than she expected – a minty sweetness that tingles on her tongue. Meenah offers her the end of the spoon again and she licks around its edge, half obligingly, half because whatever Meenah has concocted is delicious. 

Meenah takes the spoon away again, grinning that sharkteeth smile even as her empty hand catches the back of Aranea's neck and pulls her forward. Meenah's mouth is cool on hers, insistent but still more delicate than Aranea had ever expected, offering the delighted kiss of the self-satisfied, the way she always does when she's gotten her way. Aranea kisses her back anyway, always, because Meenah's proven herself then and always and Aranea has no desire to resist the sweet taste on her tongue, the sweet press of familiar lips. 

Meenah pulls back just as quickly as she was on Aranea, still grinning wide and deadly and pleased with herself, taking a careless step back and starting to turn away. 

"Still gotta make the frosting, Serket. We're not done here," she says. "If you do exactly what I tell ya an' don't fuck it up, you can help."

It turns out "help" means "do absolutely everything, with Meenah barking instructions and interrupting whenever anything might have gone astray." Meenah is particular about her baking and won't let Aranea do anything except in the precise manner she's detailed, but as she seems to know exactly what she's doing it's nothing like Aranea's blind, compulsive measuring.

The frosting has the same minty tingle as the batter Aranea tasted, and they tint it blue, the same bright cerulean Aranea loves. 

The cake is blue, too, when Meenah pulls it from the oven, though the others are the rich brown of dark chocolate and a light, fluffy white. While the layers cool, they nudge up against the oven. Aranea can feel its dying warmth at her back with Meenah's sure angles at her front. Meenah jostles at her until Aranea is right where she wants her, pelvises close and Meenah's hands crawling up her back and the light scrape of teeth accompanying slow kisses down her neck, Meenah's hand guiding her head to the side for better access with proprietary gentleness. She grips around Meenah's waist for a tether.

When Meenah stops, it's as abrupt as ever, although this time an apparent second sense for when cakes are ready to be frosted guides her motivations.

The final result is gloriously three-tiered, lovingly frosted and gradating from white to blue to almost-black on the inside when Meenah cuts it open. She serves them both slices, and they take their confectioneries to the table, perching on their stools side by side.

When Aranea tastes the final product, she's almost moaning in the back of her throat, eyes sliding closed and eyelashes fluttering with her unfettered enjoyment of a cake no less than heavenly.

"Always thought I couldda boxed it up an' marketed it," Meenah confides, carelessly, as she's forking her own cake into her mouth. "Couldda made a krilling selling this, but I was already swimmin' in cashola."

Aranea shakes her head, far too accustomed to Meenah's obsession with her wealth.

In the end, Aranea feeds Meenah from her fork, not her fingertips. It's tempting to chase the crumbs around with her fingers, once their plates are cleared, for every last taste. 

But she gets it from Meenah's tongue instead, sharing cool, sweet, mint-kisses.


End file.
